- Joined
- Feb 26, 2009
- Messages
- 277,087
- Reaction score
- 8
most people and anglers are enviromentaly aware these days, encouraged to not fish in the spawning season for enviromental reasons
I think anyone who volunteers and gives up their time for the good of others deserves a pat on the back and thanks, rather than any form of criticism.
Irrelevant of the strike rate or whether we have seen a bailiff or not, they are better than nothing and once they are known to be patrolling an area then probably the word goes around and illegal fishing (either out of season or without a licence) stops or drops.
Fishing in the close season or fishing without a EA licence are two completely separate offences and not necessarily linked. The fact is we are not going to see EA bailiffs on waters these days (or very rarely), as the good old days of them wandering about the rivers and lakes checking a few licences and chatting are long gone and not cost effective. If they did, then the same anglers would be moaning about them wasting their time, having a nice easy job and achieving nothing important on our rivers.
So good luck to the volunteers and I would like to see more of them about the waterways.
The problem with any licence is that once you make it compulsory then somehow it has to be checked and enforced. A TV licence, car tax licence, fishing licence, for instance and nobody has come up with a way of cost effectively checking fishing licences.
If every licence purchased included the cost of a single days wages for a bailiff it would hike the cost astronomically, so currently we are working pretty much on trust that anglers purchase.
If we want any enforcement then I can only see it being practical through volunteers, the tackle industry and clubs. For starters I don't think any angler should be able to renew or hold a club membership without a current licence, nobody should be on any commercial fishery without showing their licence when purchasing a ticket and no reason why you shouldn't have to show a licence every time you make a purchase from a tackle shop.
Not saying I know how to achieve these and there are plenty of loopholes, but it is possible. Alternatively we forget about any licence altogether, or we don't moan at anglers who never purchase a licence and ate never challenged, or we pay an astronomical licence fee to have bailiffs wandering the banks and checking.